Archive for the ‘Vintage Toys’ Tag

The PRHI Solid Arm is a new 3D printed add-on kit for 12″ GI Joes using the vintage style body, including reissue bodies and Cotswold Elite Brigade bodies, and is available now through the PRHI Shapeways Shop. Followers of my Instagram have seen the development process of this kit for a while now, so I am happy to have the final parts from Shapeways in-hand and be able to paint them up! Read on for details on the kits and more pics of my finished, painted arms.

Brownnoize and I were recently approached by a friend of ours looking to surprise her partner, Jeff, with an awesome Star Wars-related gift for Christmas. She had recently had the opportunity to have his head 3D scanned and had a great idea for how to incorporate that into a gift he would appreciate. She asked me if there was any way to make a figure of Jeff frozen in carbonite like Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back. I knew it could be done, and that it would require me to learn a new piece of 3D modeling software that I did not have an experience with, Blender, so I jumped at the opportunity. Brownnoize helped with the initial concept and logistics, and then I did the final modeling, printing, and finishing. Learning to use Blender was very different from the Creo that I’m used to, but thanks to some terrific video tutorials I was up and running much quicker than I expected. From there, it was just a matter of transplanting Jeff’s head onto the model, and engineering the model for detail and affordability using a combination of high-detail SLA printing from Shapeways and good ol’ FFF printing for the larger, less detailed parts. The result came together better than I had hoped, and after some paint work based on the original film prop, Jeff in Carbonite was ready to go. I provided the figure and display stand, and my friend produced a custom backer card in the vintage Kenner style of the original Star Wars line. By all accounts it was a slam dunk on Christmas day, and I am happy to have helped!

I also had a really good time with the photo shoot for this project, so read on for many more fun pics!

Most people today only remember the venerable 3 3/4″ Star Wars action figure and vehicle line from Kenner, but one of their cooler non-figure toys was the diecast Star Destroyer. The seven inch long hunk of Imperial might featured an opening hangar for storing an itty bitty <1″ long Tantine IV Rebel Blockade Runner miniature. The little Correlian Corvette is often missing, robbing the awesome Star Destroyer of a great play feature. Thanks to 3D printing, and a vintage sample for reference provided by a fellow collector, Prometheus Rising Heavy Industries is pleased to announce a reproduction ship available through Shapeways, as detailed above. Before we get into the details, I want to make it clear upfront that the reproduction parts feature a distinguishing mark so as not to be confused with the original items. I know repro parts can be a tough subject with vintage collectors, and it was important to me not to make collecting more difficult for my fellow vintage-minded peers. Rather, the PRHI Mini Blockade Runner is meant to provide an affordable alternative to the original part, as well as a few novelty items.

I will have a review and full write-up of this sweet vintage kit on CollectionDX hopefully soon, but I literally just finished the kit tonight and wanted to get some quick shots posted. Proper studio shots to follow.

B-Club is the specialty item arm of Bandai. B-Club makes PVC character figures, model detail parts, soft vinyl toys and kits, and more. They’ve released numerous reissue Bullmark kaiju vinyl toys, but have also released soft vinyl model kits over the years. At some point, B-Club released a line of 1/75 scale kits of mecha from Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. I don’t really care for the miniseries, but I like the machines in it quite a bit. When I learned about the line, I knew I needed to start tracking them down. Soft vinyl robot kits are a strange breed, but I love them. I wrote along, indulgent thoughtpiece about vinyl robot kit in a review over on CollectionDX. Go there to read lots of words, and scroll down for more and bigger pictures of the finished Zaku.

The Microman Bio Mechanic suits were model kits released at the tail end of the original Microman line and reissued by Romando in the 90’s. You can read a thorough history of them at Microforever, but the sparknotes version is that they are chunky, rugged snap-fit battle armor kits for Microman figures. This one started out life as the tan and brown Desert Filtered type, but I was on a blue kick when I airbrushed it a while back. Microman is a pretty veteran toy franchise, so I went heavy with the weathering as if this unit had been there since the beginning.